“The Devil's Daughter” has the core mechanics, which I liked, from “Crimes and Punishments”. You can watch somebody closely and make observations. And you can use clues to make deductions and reach conclusions. You can still draw the wrong conclusions which will lead to solving “a case” wrong. To make everything better, everything makes sense if you use logic and really think about it.
So, at its core, the game is solid and fun. Unfortunately, the developers insisted keeping stupid mini puzzles all over the game that, with a few exceptions, only make it more tedious without real contributions. The difficulty settings don’t make the game harder, just force more busy work. Fortunately, a low setting even gives you the option of skipping those useless puzzles.
Rating: I recommend the “Waterboarding” DLC!
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I have a problem with giving this game a mark. On the one hand it is expanding ideas of its predecessors and you can certainly like some of the cases. London is finally an semi open city. On the other however it ads mechanics that are simply never used or wasted. While playing it you can almost fell the fact that it was either cut in development or publisher forced devs to finish the product on time losing some of the original ideas. Best and most visible example of this is strange and meaningless ending.
Buy only if you are fan of the series.
If you are new to the genre, I strongly recommend previous entries, especially “Crimes and punishments”
So I did what people usually tell you - rightly so - and played Crimes and Punishments, the previous title in the series first. I enjoyed it immensely. I found it to be a clever, atmospherically dense, superbly written, highly engaging game - that innovated on classic adventure tropes and succeeded in making them better and the genre more approachable.
Then I continued on to "The Devil's daughter' and its a gut punch.
During the intro sequence, they spooled off the following tropes: Token black women (first game must have had too few for the new publishers taste (game set in victorian London)), knocking on Holmes' door, becoming a flirt/love interest to Watson, Holmes acting fashionably cool, then dissing a child - to show he's edgy.
Then diagnosing 'no, the child is not sick he has cried' without any context given, as one of the first player actions (with Watson idle in the background), then switching into acting overly sweet towards the child, because that would be the PC thing to do - someone told the dialog writer, with the child then turning out to be a blueprint of Tiny TIm, with a lame arm, who's lost his parents.
A few minutes later Holmes encounters his daughter, who is back home from boarding school - and greets her with a non sequitur about "how not to tell her about a case, because its so not age appropriate".
Then a few minutes later you have one of Holmes' street urchins cleaning a chimney - (governa'), in a mini-game, in the middle of a chase sequence. And after a few more scenes, you get Holmes shouting at Watson who had just plot advanced, that Holmes' daughter isnt his real daughter - while on the doorstep of a new, unrelated location, that his daughter' shall never be told that she is not his daughter. Ever. Because he would loose here. And thats the end of it. Looking dapper, and bachelor.
The previous game had an intelligent, cynical, sharp, crude main protagonist and on the point, intelligent story delivery and a great supporting cast.
I can not call this game a great game, but I can call it a good one. It has no issue telling you what you need to do, but what you get out of it is on you to figure out, making for a much more unique way to handle criminal cases. It also has no issue using lots of mini-games/QTEs, but does so in a way that keeps things interesting, but it understands these are not for everyone and will allow you to skip what is holding you back for better or worse.
In the end, its definitely a game with some weaknesses, but one fully aware of them. I just wish the game had a better way of handling them.
If it had everything to seduce, this episode, coming after the very successful "Crimes & Punishments" is not remarkable and I was surprised - when playing a second time - to see how much I had forgotten the plot.
The + : improved graphics, an investigation system similar to that of "Crimes & Punishments" (which was good) but synthesized. We can also note the introduction of action scenes, and a semi-open world (but is it useful?).
The problem with this game is its writing. The dialogues are often poor and the investigations not very captivating (unlike the previous episode, these are not adaptations of short stories by Conan Doyle but investigations written by the studio in the spirit of...). Moreover, this game is full of Hollywood clichés (Sherlock even becomes a kind of Indiana Jones) and Watson becomes sexy (what's the point?) but totally useless (again what's the point?). In short, quickly forgotten. Too bad.
